Ed Miliband addresses net zero targets
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The Government has this morning announced its plans to drive down the cost of clean energy – including £5,000 grants to allow people to install home heat pumps and other low-carbon boiler replacements. The new Heat and Buildings Strategy contains a commitment to funding totalling £3.9bn to decarbonise buildings and how they are heated, with a confirmed 2035 target for all new heating systems in UK homes to be energy-efficient. The scheme, which is expected to be a pillar in Mr Johnson’s Ten Point Plan for a “green industrial revolution” will be formally unveiled later today alongside his net zero strategy.
But Mike Foster, CEO of the the Energy & Utilities Alliance is not so impressed.
He said: “The Clean Homes Grant announcement of £450million, over the next three years, hardly sets the world alight.
“It subsidises 30,000 heat pumps being installed each year and is well short of the support needed to get to 600,000 heat pumps installed each year by 2028.
“It suggests the Chancellor is putting the brakes on the Prime Minister’s flight of green fantasy.”
Mr Foster also pointed out that the £5,000 grant on offer risks alienating lower-income households as it “only pays half the cost of a heat pump”.
He stated: “It is middle-class bung for people who were probably going to fit a heat pump anyway.
“For the same amount of money, £150 million a year, half a million homes could have loft insulation fitted, saving each household £135 a year, and removing 290,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year.
“Instead, removing 30,000 gas boilers, replacing them with the subsidised heat pumps will remove only 48,000 tonnes of carbon each year.
“This is hardly the COP figure the Prime Minister wants to read.”
Government sources on Monday night pushed back on suggestions the scheme was too limited, saying it was designed to “kickstart” demand for heat pumps.
Government ministers and some energy bosses believe in the coming years, the cost of a gas boiler and a heat pump will reach the same price point.
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The Prime Minister will deliver a speech on Tuesday outlining the case for the green drive, with less than a fortnight to go before the Cop26 UN climate change conference in Glasgow.
Mr Johnson said: “As we clean up the way we heat our homes over the next decade, we are backing our brilliant innovators to make clean technology like heat pumps as cheap to buy and run as gas boilers – supporting thousands of green jobs.
“Our new grants will help homeowners make the switch sooner, without costing them extra, so that going green is the better choice when their boiler needs an upgrade.”
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